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Cover Story •Practical Tips to Help You Prove Your Valueby Amelia Kassel

During recent years, information professionals
in many settings have had to learn new skills and competencies not taught
in graduate school, yet nevertheless necessary for most productive relationships,
and even for survival. Significantly, many librarians now ask and talk
about strategic and proactive measures that both create and prove value
for their organizations. One speaker elegantly referred to information
centers as "institutional assets." Yet transforming libraries into recognized
corporate assets has its challenges. This article covers guidelines and
tips for creating, explaining, and communicating value. They're drawn from
several resources, including SLA; Outsell, Inc.; and a presentation I gave,
titled Library Services in the Face of a Merger, that focused on ideas
for proving your value as an information professional.

Demonstrating 'Return on Investment'A distance education program videotaped last year and sponsored by
SLA and Factiva1
focused on several techniques for return on investment (ROI). The video
addressed a number of topics:

ROI measurements

Library usage trends and trend analysis showing growth

Internal surveys focusing on customer satisfaction and loyalty

Benchmarks against other information centers

The importance of communicating good stories and testimonials to management
and target markets, albeit anecdotal in nature

Although panelists were from large corporations, they concurred that solo
librarians, law librarians, those in small libraries—just about all librarians—can
and should use the above techniques to prove value, and they must make
time to do this. Roger Strouse, of Outsell, Inc.,2
suggests:

ROI is something executives want to understand when they're spending
a large part of their budget. With a strong focus on the bottom line, executives
tend to have less emotional attachment to the various operations they oversee
and are willing, or even anxious, to jettison a unit that doesn't contribute
in a tangible way....

Calculating the return-on-investment is simply a matter of comparing
the cost data (budget, user time spent, other direct costs, etc.) with
the financial benefits (user time saved, savings in consolidated buying,
savings in direct costs, etc.). When the financial benefits outweigh the
costs, a positive ROI is proven.

Understanding Your Corporate CultureAs a first step, understanding your own corporate culture is of critical
significance since the library must align its internal measurement efforts
for ROI with corporate strategic initiatives. The following are some common
examples of corporate ROI metrics:

Time saved—expressed in terms of hours and dollars

Increased sales

Quicker response to competitive threats

Return on shareholder value

Shortened product cycle from conception to market

Strouse talks about engaging the library staff to leverage its knowledge,
experience, and creativity. To meet that end, he recommends conducting
staff focus groups with specific goals:

Clarifying the corporate objectives

Enumerating the benefits that the information center brings to the corporation

Deciding how best to measure those benefits

Agreeing on the target markets for information services

Reviewing needs assessments to decide what services should be retained,
canceled, or added

Brainstorming areas to target for cost savings

The library staff, therefore, is one source for identifying how to develop
measurement programs. Solo librarians, admittedly, have to work on their
own, but contact with library users and others within their organizations
and the sources mentioned in this article are good resources to draw upon
as well.

Once you understand the goals of your corporation and the measurements
that are important to it, you can identify ROI metrics that are in tune
with the company to calculate your library's value. An organization that
brings hundreds of products to market, for example, regularly looks for
ways to decrease new product development time cycles. Its information center
librarians should provide it with the scientific, technical, and business
information necessary for developing initial concepts (research and development),
and they may also conduct a market analysis or competitive intelligence
research. The corporate librarian assists users by collecting data and
analyzing target markets, or by identifying potential marketing strategies
and ad campaigns launched by competitors. The information the librarian
locates and delivers is important for market positioning. Research that
encompasses technical, scientific, or academic studies often contains models
(or paradigms) and case studies that uncover crucial details about the
competition.

Or, the librarian may provide information about intellectual property,
encompassing patents, trademarks, or licensing. The research results for
these types of queries ultimately affect the bottom line. Moreover, a librarian's
due diligence research may uncover financial or fraudulent activities that
ultimately save a company millions of dollars because it helps managers
to engage in savvy negotiations, or in deal making during potential mergers
and acquisitions (M&A). Research saves the day by revealing data that
can be used to avoid a potentially bad deal.

Information professionals know their value based on the examples above.
What has become glaringly and painfully apparent, however, is that key
managers may not know or understand what's going on behind the scenes of
their own organizations. It is essential for corporate librarians to measure
and report results to those who hold the purse strings.

Practice Information ProfessionalismCollecting, documenting, and analyzing the right data, assessing their
implications, and communicating them are important next steps in the evolution
of what I'll call "information professionalism." Sometimes, corporate librarians
will require support from cost accountants inside their firms, other experts,
or outside consultants. For starters, SLA's video and list of additional
resources are chock-full of ideas and are a good beginning for learning
more about how to calculate ROI and user trends. See http://www.sla.org/content/learn/learnwhere/portals/ROI/prework.cfm.

Annual Reports: Annual reports and other internal materials are
sources for learning more about your company's goals and requirements.
Regularly reviewing the glossy annual report, proxy statements, 8-Ks, 10-Qs,
and 10-Ks can become part of your strategic and market planning effort.
As a business-within-a-business, it's necessary for the information center
to plan. Annual reports sometimes provide information not in a 10-K, and
vice versa. Learn to read financial statements. Look for potential opportunities
or threats, and for problems or issues that you can address by developing
information and knowledge products and services that are integral and valuable
to the corporation. Also, it's always important to read the notes regarding
any financial statements because they may contain critical information
and disclosures to be aware of.

User Surveys: It's necessary to understand user populations,
especially for accurate measurements of ROI. Needs assessments, information
audits, and user surveys are all activities you should consider. Although
librarians often conduct their own surveys internally, getting valid results
means knowing whom to survey (i.e., should you survey both your users and
nonusers?), sampling, statistical analysis, and conclusions. Outsell, Inc.
or other market research and survey firms and consultants can assist you
with survey development and analysis.

New Job Titles and New NamesAre librarians having an identity crisis, as one librarian suggested?
Looking at some of the job titles bandied about, it's appropriate to reflect
on this matter. Many librarians believe that they can prove their value
by changing their names. Looking at the concept of branding and identity,
there may be more to a name than meets the eye. Here are job titles used
in recent years: Knowledge Manager, Corporate Intelligence Officer, Consultant,
Global Content Manager, Intranet Manager, Taxonomy Specialist, Research
Analyst, Information Specialist. And here are alternate names for libraries
that are now being used: Resource Center, Business Information Center,
Knowledge and Research Services, Market Research or Competitive Intelligence
Center, Virtual Library, Knowledge Center, Digital Library, Research Group.

Today's job titles and job descriptions are quite different from, and
certainly much more demanding than, the way they were in the past. For
examples, see the Job Title Generator for Library and Information Science
Professionals at http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/~mach/jobtitle.htm
for a list of job titles in use.

New Competencies, Skills, ServicesWhen I interviewed 15 banking, pharmaceutical, and utilities librarians
and consultants on this subject, their answers revealed some of the new
skills and competencies that corporate librarians provide. These reflect
the added value these professionals offer compared to the more limited,
albeit often technical and detailed, activities of past years. The list
includes a variety of skills and functions:

In one situation, the library staff pioneered Web and intranet development.
Staff members provided training for senior management and taught others
in the company how to use the Web. As a result, upper management decided
that the library staff should become consultants and coordinators. Librarians
were put in charge of organizing the research and development (R&D)
information structure that supports the IT function. This new role brought
status, recognition, and big salary increases because they were seen as
a much-needed, integral part of their company.

Information Professional SkillsSue Feldman's seminal article "Is There a Future for Information Professionals?"4
describes an impressive array of skills that librarians sometimes forget.
It's important for librarians themselves to be aware of and to acknowledge
their own talents and skills first, before they can begin to portray and
communicate them to others. Feldman discussed topics like problem analysis,
word skills, knowledge of resources, and interpersonal skills. Each of
these topics encompasses many individual skills.

Some Ways That Libraries Save MoneyOne important measure of ROI shows how libraries can save money within
their units. Here are some suggestions for cost savings:

Centralize book ordering

Partner with other groups to provide services that save them time and costs

Some libraries have closed their doors in favor of becoming virtual, sometimes
keeping a small collection of hard copy. This step can yield cost savings,
while librarians continue to provide important services.

Tips for Being More ProactiveOnce you know what you want to measure, gather the data, and identify
skills, etc., it's necessary to communicate the information to the powers
that be. The skills, products, and services you provide often speak for
themselves, at least when you're preaching to the choir, but communicating
your worth to executives and users is the final step. Ideas for proactive
communication are listed below.

Cultivate relationships with administrative assistants who know what's
going on before anyone else.

Create time for planning new products and services.

Evaluate core competencies.

Create time to network and learn as much about the organization as possible.

Who are the winners? Focus on them. Build relationships.

Many companies want to reassign employees: Talk to everyone you can about
how you do your job, how they do theirs, and what resources you offer.

Evaluate statistics.

Use soft data, such as testimonials, to express the library's value.

Develop reports based on company priorities.

You Should Always Stay a Step AheadIt will be necessary for you to think about redirecting some of your
expertise, resources, money, and people to meet business goals of the company.
And be sure to communicate what you are doing! A library can even act as
a prototype or model group within an organization. Others are thinking
about what to do; librarians do it! Librarians are involved in technology,
often years before others. By keeping up with company goals and hot topics,
and who's doing and saying what, you can stay one step ahead of everyone
else in the organization. Contact and stay in touch with key business units
or teams and the executive management. Signs of a major shift in attitudes
toward information professionals in many settings bodes extremely well
for the profession as a whole, but it will require new and continued efforts
in some cases to make the point and thrive.

Amelia Kassel is president of MarketingBase,
a firm specializing in market research, competitive intelligence, and worldwide
business information since 1984. She provides information and library consulting
and training, and combines an in-depth knowledge of information sources
and electronic databases with expertise in business and marketing strategies.
She has an M.L.S. from the University of California­Los Angeles. Her
e-mail address is amelia@marketingbase.com.